


Storytelling

by JoJo



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: 3K Round-up Challenge, Episode Related, Episode: s02e13 Obsession, Gen, Gift Fic, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 01:06:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5892223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/JoJo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>written for the mag7daybook holiday stocking to the request: <i>Hurt/ Comfort: Chris breaks a bone (arm, leg, something) and has to depend on someone else for help until he gets better. Of course he hates it, but how does he deal?</i>  </p><p>and with thanks as always to farad who has this great way of 'anchoring' stories that I've allowed to flap about aimlessly in the breeze</p></blockquote>





	Storytelling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boogieshoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boogieshoes/gifts).



J.D. had not been concentrating, it was true, and Buck would have his guts for garters about that later. And then probably Chris’s as well.

He’d been in the middle of recounting his favorite story of the bay mare and the waterhole. In truth it had been mainly to try and cheer Chris's black mood, for although he was mostly up to strength once more after being shot, Ella Gaines was still missing. J.D. feared, like they all did, that Chris would never be how they’d known him before, not until she was found and dealt with. Her continued existence on earth seemed to nag at him like an open sore. J.D. thought he’d have done anything to ease that. 

Then, of course, there was also the fact that the story of the bay mare and the waterhole was always fun to tell, being as it was at Buck’s expense. 

J.D. had been in full flow about how Buck had first been clumsy and then madder than a wet hen, and in his hilarity hadn’t been aware of much around him. He’d been stretching out the trail from his back and shoulders, laughing about the end of the story and kicking rocks around. Chris had begun by laughing, too, which had felt like a victory. But he’d stopped real quick, and damn it but J.D. hadn’t taken enough notice. It was only when Chris’s gun sounded, a sickeningly harsh boom at his feet, that J.D. snapped into the present.

Which was chunks of rattler and shards of rock flying into the air around his ears.

“Didn’t you hear it?” Chris bellowed at him, so damned fierce it shook J.D. to his core. 

He’d turned, shocked at the tone. His face must have looked like something all right – maybe as if he’d just been bitten – because Chris couldn’t get to him fast enough.

And, Hell. J.D. would never not feel sick when he remembered Chris’s boot heel catching and then the grim sound of snapping tendon or bone, whichever it was.

*

He’d helped Chris across to some flat, smooth ground – by dint of half dragging and half supporting him. And Chris was flailing and cussing worse than J.D. had ever heard him.

Once he was safe on level ground, he kind of collapsed back. Lay there hardly moving. Hardly breathing it seemed. But then his head snapped up.

“So help me, J.D....”

“Jeez, I’m sorry!” J.D. didn’t like the little-boy quavering of his voice. “I didn’t hear it, didn’t see it, that’s all!”

Chris’s neck rolled again and he lay back on the ground. He was breathing heavily now, trying to get over the pain, or else overcome by fury.

“Think I’ve bust something,” he ground out in the end. “It hurts like a sonofabitch.”

“Your ankle?”

“Reckon.” One hand felt down his leg and he hissed. “Twisted my knee pretty bad, too.”

“Oh God, can you ride? We should get you back to town, back to Nathan.” 

It was always the solution, the first thought. Get to Nathan. Hand over responsibility. J.D. wondered if he’d be able to get Chris on his horse.

“Course I can’t ride!” Chris snapped at him. And then his teeth sank into his lower lip. He seemed to grow very pale. “Stop sitting about there staring for Christ’s sake.”

“All right, I’m here!” J.D. didn’t like being yelled at much. It stung him. “What do you want me to do?”

“You need to cut the damn boot off.” Chris’s face was a nasty, pale greenish color. “Before my ankle swells up.”

“I know that, I know.”

J.D. knew, too, that Chris’s hoarse, hectoring tone – his furious expression – was because the pain from his ankle was almost too much to bear. It didn’t stop him being unnerved by it, though.

“Well find a goddamned knife then! Jesus, and would you hurry up!”

After he’d frozen that time during the gunfight against Achilles and his men, J.D. had told himself he could never do such a thing again. Not while he had other people who might need him. However he felt – terrified, angry, shocked, ill, whatever it might be – he had to find a way to overcome his weaknesses. Be a man.

He scrambled away from Chris towards the horses who were stamping nervously under the trees.

“Easy now,” he said, his own voice jittery. There was a fat cooking knife in one of the saddlebags. They kept it razor sharp. J.D. fumbled for it, was lucky not to slice off a finger. 

What would Nathan do? Or Vin?

He unsaddled Chris’s horse, too, grabbed some blankets. They had some medical supplies, for Nathan didn’t hold to any one of them riding out of town on so much as a nearby errand without taking at least basics. J.D.’s mind was racing through what might need to be done, going so fast now that he feared he’d just miss the most important steps. By the time he got back to Chris he was sweating.

All the things tumbled to the ground.

Chris’s eyes were slitted. He had a fine film of damp on his forehead, too. 

“You want some water?” J.D. babbled.

“The boot.” Chris’s teeth were gritted so hard it must be hurting his jaw. “Just the goddamned boot.”

“Wish we had one of Nathan’s knives. This blade might not...”

“Do it!”

“You gotta keep still though, Chris. Real still. Don’t want to cut you.”

“Don’t bitching well care!”

“All right, easy now. Here we go.”

J.D. took a deep breath. He glanced at Chris, then made himself concentrate on nothing but the boot and the knife. 

_Just do it, son_ , Josiah’s voice said in his ear. _The Lord will carry you through_.

He had to ignore the way Chris was breathing, the bone whiteness of his knuckles as he clenched his hands. By the time he’d done the deed, slicing through the stubborn leather – hacking at times, trying to be careful with the last part over the heel but not being able to avoid jostling the injured limb – Chris was almost out of it. 

“Ah... Jesus...” His jaw was trembling, perhaps with the effort required not to punch J.D. away. One hand uncurled and moved, uncertain and jerky, in the air.

J.D. swallowed. He let go of the knife, so it dropped to the ground with a thump. At once he slid his own hand around Chris’s. His reach was almost instinctive, although he bumped up against his own inadequacy too. As soon as he felt the contact Chris gripped back so hard J.D. felt the bite all the way up his forearm. He almost gasped out loud but he clamped his teeth together, managed to resist the urge.

“It’s OK,” he managed to get out instead. Chris squeezed his eyes shut and held on to him like a vice, until J.D. didn’t think he had any blood left in his hand. “All right,” he kept saying, fighting to keep his voice calm. “All right.” 

And then gradually, gradually, Chris’s grip on him began to lessen. Finger by finger, bone by bone. Either because the pain was leveling out, or because he was losing strength. 

Least he ain’t bleeding, J.D. told himself. Although he was so darned pale. Whatever he’d damaged needed care, and it must be hurting him awful bad. J.D. was getting flashes back to Chris lying in the dirt outside Ella Gaines’ house, how they’d almost lost him. It was still so near. Still clung to them all like smoke.

“It’s really OK,” he said again, even though it wasn’t and his voice was hitched. Chris’s head had dipped back again on to the ground. He was breathing through his open mouth, eyes half shut. And he didn’t let go J.D.’s hand.

J.D. glanced uneasily down at Chris’s ankle and the trashed boot. He wondered if he should be getting the sock off too. That wouldn’t go too well if the foot swelled up like Chris seemed to think it would. Already his ankle looked bigger than it should. Hell, was it broken? Or just twisted?

“Reckon it’s broke,” Chris muttered for him, fingers finally loosening completely. His hand fell away, lax, and J.D. let it go.

“Well right,” J.D. said, projecting a calm he didn’t feel. “I’m going to go ahead and slice off this sock. Then I can... I can bind you up somehow.” He glanced up at the sky. “Gonna have to get under some shelter too if we ain’t going anywhere tonight.”

“Fuck but you gotta keep alert, J.D.,” Chris murmured at him, mad again. His head was still flat on the ground. “No use to me if you don’t notice danger. No damned use.” 

J.D. swallowed. There was very little worse in life than disappointing Chris Larabee.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I can’t turn back the clock now. Things I gotta do.” Already his mind was running, worriedly, on to what they were going to eat.

“There any laudanum in Nathan’s kit?” Chris asked after a while, faint and fractious.

J.D. shook his head, a little relieved. Laudanum kind of scared him. Although both Buck and Ezra became peaceable and funny-sleepy on it, he’d seen Vin out of his head crazy when he’d been shot once and Nathan dosed him up. The thought of Chris Larabee in a similar state was terrifying.

“Nathan said he needed to hold on to what he had. There’s just some of that dried mess for making tea.”

“Damn that,” Chris said. “Gonna need to cut my pant leg.”

“Really?” J.D. was aghast.

“Really." Chris swiped a tongue over his dry lips. "Knee’s swellin’ up too.”

“Ah hell,” J.D. said, picking up the knife again. He looked at it a second, and then, thankfully, remembered the scissors in Nathan’s kit. The last thing he wanted to do was stab Chris in the leg. He ran back to the horses, this time brought the whole saddle bag with him. His cutting seemed steadier this go around. He lifted away the lower half of Chris’s pant leg carefully, wincing at the sight of the bulbous puffiness around the kneecap.

Should he be trying to splint the whole leg? J.D. wasn’t sure how, so he decided not to even try. Chris growled at him like a disturbed guard dog every time he came too near anyhow.

“Just rest easy then,” he said. He hoped Chris couldn’t hear any doubts in his voice. Too many times he’d watched Nathan and the others being calm and confident while caring for their wounded friends. Even in the face of gunfire, blood, and mortal dangers.

A fever brewed overnight. J.D. had wrapped the ankle and the knee, although not too tight as the swelling of both was real bad. It was more to protect them than anything, and because he thought he ought to do something. He’d raised the whole leg up on one of the saddles, then built a fire. Chris said he felt like throwing up, but he drank some of the tea, even though J.D. couldn’t rightly recall how much leaf mulch he was supposed to use in it. He himself managed to chew on some jerky and ate a bruised-looking apple and a chunk of day-old bread. Chris didn’t eat a thing. He retched a few times as if he was going to lose the tea but managed not to. Then he slept fitfully, crossly.

In the dead of dark J.D. found himself crouched down at his side with a cloth and a water bottle. Dabbing at Chris’s face. Lifting his head from the makeshift pillow of his ruined pants and a spare shirt so he could drink. Brushing the stubborn bangs of darkened fair hair out of his eyes. Whispering strangely intimate words in response to Chris’s fevered worries.

“Try and rest easy – Hush now – It’s all right – I’m not going anywhere.”

The night was dark and long. J.D. badly wanted to sleep but he daren’t. He always carried his share of the watch when they were out on the trail, but equally he’d always suspected that either Buck or Vin stayed awake with him, even though they pretended to be asleep. Being really alone on guard, the only thing between Chris and uncertain enemies, made his fatigue-befuddled senses curiously raw and sharp. He kept his gun out of the holster and next to him on the ground, clear in the firelight so he could snatch it up at once if he needed to.

Despite the temptation as the dawn began to show, he didn’t let himself so much as doze.

And then, when the morning proper did creep up around him, he had only had about an hour to start getting anxious. He began to think about how they had no food for the day, were running out of water, the horses needed to be taken to the stream, and he wasn’t sure how to get Chris in the saddle and didn’t know if he should be moving him anyway. He’d re-bound the ankle and knee in the daylight, which made Chris call him awful names. They were both a hellish wicked color, black and purple, looked twice their normal size. The fever had only abated slightly with the coming of the day.

It was only about an hour because before he’d really gotten around to thinking how empty his belly was, a couple of figures on horseback appeared on the horizon. Instantly recognizable.

Relief poured over J.D. like a waterfall.

Vin and Buck, coming to find them. 

Of course they were. They’d have been thinking about that woman, from the moment J.D. and Chris hadn't returned last night as planned.

“”Hey,” he said, instantly grabbing up Chris’s cool, tense hand once more. He chafed it briefly, almost without thinking, then laid it back against Chris’s chest. “Good news.”

Chris’s eyes opened at the touch. He rolled his head in the direction of the approaching riders. He didn’t say anything, just licked his lips, frowned as if the light hurt his eyes. 

Nathan they needed, clearly. But, J.D. reasoned, he couldn’t be everywhere at once. And much as he liked and relied on Josiah and Ezra for different things, it was Buck and Vin he was so damned thankful to see. Even though he suspected Buck might begin by slapping him upside the head, to have his support and friendship right now would mean the world. And Vin was always a feller you needed in a crisis. Always. But even more than his own personal feelings, those two were the best ones for Chris right now as well. The ones Chris would want to see most, before he got around to grousing at them for not being Nathan with the laudanum.

The horses picked up pace soon as the riders were near enough to spot that there was someone on the ground.

“What the hell happened?” came Buck’s voice first, dismayed and edgy. It was a tone that never seemed far away these days. 

“He’s hurt his ankle and knee – maybe broken bones – been cooking up a fever.” J.D. figured the whole truth would come out soon enough. Heck, Chris must be bursting to tell them which idiot was at fault, and he wouldn’t blame him.

And then suddenly Vin was one side of him, and Buck was the other. J.D felt a little shiver of relief. He thought he’d just move aside, let them take over, but then a strangely protective wave of feeling came over him. 

“Go easy,” he found himself saying, more commanding than he would normally be around these two men. “He don’t need to be jostled. Don’t paw at him.”

Buck goggled at him for a moment. But Vin backed off, just a little. He pushed his hat back off his head so it hung by the storm strap, let his keen blue eyes run up and down Chris where he lay.

“Hell, cowboy,” he said, looking him in the face. “Gone and busted yaself pretty good there.” His eyes slid to J.D., not giving anything away. “Lucky you had the kid here.”

J.D. sagged then. “Haven’t done much,” he said. 

“Reckon you have,” Vin responded, gaze flicking around the little camp. “Kept him warm and watered. Protected his hurts. Took guard. Don’t see what else you coulda done seein’ as you ain’t a doctor.”

“He needs to get back to town.”

“Yep,” Vin said, rising out of his crouch. “Needs a wagon, too. I’m going back to town to get one, and bring Nathan out. Buck, you stay. J.D. looks like he needs some rest. We brought some food to keep you going. Reckon I can be back before dark.”

“Laudanum,” Chris murmured, catching at his sleeve.

The ghost of a smile crossed Vin’s face.

“I’m all right,” J.D. said stoutly to Buck when Vin had watered his horse, watered himself, and ridden on out again at a lick. He didn’t really feel all right. He felt weary beyond sense, only there was a stubborn part of him that, glad as he’d been to see him, didn’t want to give over control to Buck. Chris was his responsibility, in more ways than he could express. He was going to be there for him. “Reckon you could make us some grub, Buck.”

“You reckon I could make you s-?” Buck’s echo tailed off, voice full of angry disbelief. But then he seemed to give J.D. a closer look. His nostrils flared. There was a fine tremor along his moustache and J.D. wondered if he’d gone too far. Chris made a discontented sound. He shifted on the bedroll, restless, or as if he was going to try and get up.

“Hey,” J.D. said, moving to him at once, aware of Buck’s eyes on his back. His laid a steady hand on Chris’s shoulder, keeping him down. “The boys are here. Came to help us out. Just need to hang on a little longer then we’ll get you back to town.”

“God damn it, J.D.,” Chris growled faintly, as he had done countless times since he’d hurt himself.

“Yeah,” J.D. said, settling down by him, close enough Chris would get some of the warmth. “I know.”

*

Vin returned in double quick time with Nathan, a wagon, and the laudanum. 

They spent another night at the camp, left for town first thing in the morning. Nathan had fixed up a makeshift splint to keep the knee and ankle steady while they were traveling. They’d dosed Chris up so he could stand the journey but he was feeble and breathless from the fever and Buck was plainly worried.

“He ain’t shot,” J.D. said, slumped in the saddle and woozy from fatigue. “How bad can it be?”

“Yeah well it ain’t so long since he was,” Vin pointed out. “And that was about as bad as it could get.”

They took advantage of the laudanum, traveled as fast as they dared. It always felt these days as if the threat from Ella Gaines was just around the corner. Chris didn’t like them being split up, thought they were safer and more effective against her as a pack. He’d been agitated all night over the thought that Josiah and Ezra were alone back there.

Back in town J.D. watched him being carried up the stairs and into the clinic. As well as being worn out, he felt small and ashamed. None of this would be happening if it wasn’t for him being so stupid, so thoughtless and young.

He jumped when Vin clapped him on the back. “Ain’t nothing else to be done now. He’s in good hands.”

J.D. was grateful Vin hadn’t called him ‘kid’. He wanted to admit it was all his fault but his voice caught in his throat. Hell knew what the others would think once they knew. Once Chris told them.

Only he certainly didn’t get the chance to tell them for a while. The fever came and went for a day or two. Nathan said Chris was weaker than he’d realized from the bullet wound, couldn’t do with risking infection. The swelling was bad over the next twenty-four hours and then, finally, began to abate. 

By the time the first afternoon came that Larabee was out of the clinic and sitting back in that damned invalid chair on the boardwalk once again, crotchety as an old bear, J.D. figured the truth must be out.

It seemed not. None of the others said a word to him. He might have expected Buck to give him hell if he’d known. Or Nathan. He might even have suspected a grave sermon from Josiah or some playing-a-part, twinkle-eyed speech from Ezra. But, there was nothing.

J.D. ate his lunch and thought maybe it was time he went and said a real sorry. For getting Chris so badly crocked. The thought that he still wasn’t a rock solid part of the outfit, even after all they’d been through, hurt his chest.

He wiped his mouth, brushed down his pants and settled his guns. Then he pushed out of the batwings, went up towards the boardwalk outside the jail. He could see Chris there in the chair, one leg on a stool. He wasn’t draped in the blanket like before, and when J.D. drew near he could see he wasn’t as cadaver-pale as he’d been in those days after the gunshot wound either.

“Hey,” he said, wandering up. “How’re you feeling?”

Chris gave him a look J.D. couldn’t quite interpret. When J.D. didn’t say anything else he waved a hand as if inviting him to stay.

“You’re looking better than you were. Nathan says you’ll be walking fine in a week or two.”

There was silence, and J.D. felt wretched.

Chris cleared his throat as if he had a cold.

“Reckon I gave you a hard time out there, kid.” 

Larabee was croaky-voiced from sleep and probably still half drugged up, too. 

J.D. hadn’t expected that. He didn’t know how to respond and so he shrugged. The beer Buck had stood him at lunch time was slopping around in his belly.

“Reckon there weren’t nothing for it,” he said in the end, a little helpless.

“No.” Chris pushed his head back against the wall. He shifted uncomfortably as if trying to stretch out his leg. “You were doing your best for me and seems I didn’t do much except yell at you.”

“Well, you were hurting pretty bad. And fevered too. And you were right to be mad at me. I was a dolt.”

“No that’s not... just, damn it, J.D., I’m trying to apologize!”

J.D. shrank back a little. Apologize? To him?

He watched uneasily as Chris took a few lungfuls of air into his chest, as if to calm himself. His instinct was to assure Larabee that there was no need, in fact just the opposite, but something told him that maybe that wasn’t at all what Chris wanted to hear. He racked his brains, tried to think what Buck would say. Or Vin. Buck would probably go on making a joke about what a pain in the butt Chris had been, and Chris would just about take that from him. And Vin?

He figured Vin would be that word Ezra called him. ‘Laconic’, that was it. Yes, Vin would bat back Chris’s irritation by being cool, and wry, and... laconic.

Trouble was, J.D. figured if he tried to sound like that it’d just come out disrespectful. But he had to say something.

“All right,” he said in the end. He hoped he sounded accepting as well as cool and wry and laconic.

“You did good,” Chris said, sounded sure about it. Rubbing his knee he fixed J.D. with his keen, clear, hazel eyes. “Glad you were there.”

It didn’t – it really didn’t – seem that the words were too hard coming out.

J.D. guessed he must have learned more than one lesson since Chris’s gun had fired back there in the rocky clearing. He certainly knew he shouldn’t say another word more right now. There was a little swell of pride that made his chest feel better, too. Not much, but just enough.

He felt a smile come, and a nod.

Then Chris nodded back at him, bumped his head back against the wall of the jailhouse, and let his eyes slide shut.

All was quiet on the boardwalk. J.D. glanced up the street. He could see Vin and Buck outside the saloon with cups of coffee. They were usually the ones who’d come and sit by Chris when they got the chance, but they weren’t moving. Seeing Buck made J.D. smile to himself. Something about Buck always cheered him up. He figured there was probably more mileage in the bay mare and the waterhole yarn, but at least it seemed as if the story of the rattler and the plumb deaf sheriff was going to be laid permanently to rest.

Quietly he lowered himself down on the step. Chris was calm and peaceful. J.D. figured it was his job to keep it like that, for as long as possible.

He decided he’d be the one to stay and sit for a while. It felt like the right place for him to be.

 

-ends-

**Author's Note:**

> written for the mag7daybook holiday stocking to the request: _Hurt/ Comfort: Chris breaks a bone (arm, leg, something) and has to depend on someone else for help until he gets better. Of course he hates it, but how does he deal?_
> 
> and with thanks as always to farad who has this great way of 'anchoring' stories that I've allowed to flap about aimlessly in the breeze


End file.
